Teaching
Teaching is integral to my creative practice, and informs my ongoing freelance work as an artist and choreographer. I have extensive experience of lecturing and research in Higher Education including for Bath Spa University, Brighton University, University of Bristol, Dartington College of Arts and, most recently, Falmouth University (2015 - 2021), where I specialised in practical and theoretical approaches to choreography & screen media and site-based performance making, and shared the role of Course Leader for the BA (Hons) Dance & Choreography programme. I continue to teach regularly in grassroots community and peer-led professional arts contexts, and I support and mentor other artists at all career stages.
Screendance
I have an MA in Visual Performance (Time-based Media) from Dartington College of Arts, and a PhD, exploring the screen as a site for choreographic practice, from the University of Bristol's Department of Drama: Theatre, Film, Television (2015). From 2011 - 2022, I was a founder member of the Screendance Network, an international network of artists and researchers engaged in dance and screen media practices; between 2019 - 2022 I was Editor of the International Journal on Screendance, working with the Editorial Board to hold a space for discourse at the intersection of dance and screen media practices.
Singing
In 2017, through a chance encounter with singer, composer, and living legend Vicky Abbott during WildWorks' production of Wolf's Child at Trelowarren, Cornwall, I established a fascination with singing and voice work. I then trained intensively with and performed in projects led by Vicky, including singing with the alt-country acapella Blazing Heart Chorus, and with Tuesday Night Fun Club performance choir. In 2018, I sang in WildWorks' 100: UnEarth at the Lost Garden of Heligan, and in 2019, with Seamas Carey, Vicky Abbott and TNFC in Seamas Carey meets his 4 Year Old Self directed by Aga Blonska and performed at CAST, The Exchange, Kneehigh's Asylum and Bristol Old Vic. In 2020, I began exploring collaborative vocal improvisation (CVI) and completed a six-month intensive training programme with Briony Greenhill, as well as beginning to consider my voice as a solo singer, to attempt to write material, and to learn about the recording process (all ongoing). In 2021, I sang in the extraordinary Ordinalia. In 2022, I sang with the acapella alt-country Woodshed Singers, and with singer-songwriter, Hannah Bullock. In 2023, I sang with Hannah Bullock and Kath Buckler, supporting Kathryn Roberts & Sean Lakeman at the Tolmen Centre, Constantine; with Blazing Heart Chorus, sharing a bill with Men Are Singing as a fundraising event for Lafrowda in St Just; and in ReVoice, a participatory project presented at Tate St Ives, exploring intangible cultural heritage and our Cornish context, with Vicky Abbott and Tuesday Night Fun Club, directed by Agnieszka Blonska, produced by imPossible. In 2024, I sang in Open Circle, performed at Carnglaze Caves and St Just Miners Chapel, as part of Wildworks' Hello Stranger.
ALL IN
ALL IN is where the practices of artist Faye Dobinson and choreographer Kyra Norman meet, to create a space of possibility and joy through art and movement, together and with others. This collaboration is growing out of several years of creative path-crossing, serious playing, and open-ended conversations about the kinds of socially-engaged, interdisciplinary art work we believe in, trust in, and want to see more of, here in West Cornwall. We each have over 20 years' experience of generating welcoming, lively, original events - performances, exhibitions, shows, workshops, social knees-ups and other unclassifiable adventures in art and movement. We each have wide experience of teaching, mentoring and facilitating in diverse contexts. Sharing practice and being in conversation with people from different walks of life - about what on Earth it is we're all trying to do - is central to our work. Instagram: @thisis_allin
